Re: The Last Days of the American Republic

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 3/15/07, Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> The dominant culture of America used to seek to have Americans
> identify with the Athenians, who were democratic and imperialistic at
> the same time.  But nowadays the dominant American culture wants to
> have Americans identify with oligarchic Spartans.
>
> According to Lenin's Tomb ... and
> other reviewers, (the just released and apparently wildly popular
> film) 300 takes the Battle of Thermopylae and turns it into an epic
> battle not only against the (naturally tyrannical) Persians but also
> Blacks, queers, and so forth ....
>
> It is quite appropriate that a film about the Battle of Thermopylae,
> which the Greeks lost,

but in some or most interpretations, it was a "Pyrric victory" for the
Persians, since the Spartan sacrifice allowed the rest of the Greeks
to regroup and then successfully beat off the Persians.

BTW, I'm told that the Persians are portrayed as darker-skinned than
the Greeks in "300." But it was really a battle between two groups of
Aryans (at least in leadership roles).

> is being shown at a time when many Americans,
> even a growing number of Republicans, are thinking that America
> already lost or is soon to lose in Iraq (which was part of the Persian
> Empire at the time of the Greco-Persian Wars...).  The film
> tells the Americans to sacrifice themselves bravely in Iraq, even to
> the last man.  Their heroic deaths will be avenged later -- just as
> Greek deaths were avenged first at the naval Battle of Salamis and
> decisively at the Battle of Plataea.

according to story last week in either the L.A. or N.Y. TIMES, the
story has also been interpreted with George Bush playing the Xerxes
role (the bloated emperor) against the more "republican" Iraqi
insurgents. The movie -- and the "graphic novel" -- go back before the
US invasion and partial conquest of Iraq. It was in the pipeline
before 2003.

beware the Ides of March!
--
Jim Devine / "The truth is more important than the facts." -- Frank Lloyd Wright